Posts Tagged ‘Rutger Hauer’

High above the East River in a cable tram, an international terrorist has taken several U.N. delegates hostage and has declared war on New York City. Only one cop stands in the way of this madman’s insidious plot. This is the premise behind the action thriller Nighthawks (1981), which stars Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, and in his American film debut Rutger Hauer as Wulfgar.

Sylvester Stallone stars as Detective Sergeant Deke DaSilva, a tough NY street cop who is about to be pitted against one of the world’s most deadly terrorists. The film opens up in NYC on New Years Eve as both DaSilva and his partner Sgt. Matt Fox (Williams), members of a street crime unit that targets scumbags and pickpockets, ring in the New Year after they arrest three men in a sting operation. DaSilva chases one of the muggers onto the platform of the 174th street station in the Bronx, where he apprehends the man after he resists arrest.

On the very same day across the Atlantic Ocean in London, England, Heymar Wulfgar (Hauer) targets a department store in another terrorist bombing which is a statement against British Imperialism. He warns the press that he will strike again and that there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Being so well known in Europe, and after the killing of a terrorist contact, Wulgar undergoes plastic surgery in order to clandestinely sneak across international borders and to continue his terrorist plots.

This week’s Monday Pick is the 1987 Sci-fi action film Robocop, directed by master filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Flesh & Blood, Soldier of Orange, The Black Book). Peter Weller stars as slain police officer Alex Murphy who is brought back to life by corporate scientists to become the ultimate law enforcement weapon in the crime-ridden Detroit of the near future.

Robocop is not only a well made solid blend of sci-fi and action, Verhoeven and writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner splendidly poke fun at many institutions in American culture like the media, corporate greed, privatization, capitalism, and even masculinity.

OCP (Omni Consumer Products) is a vast corporation that specializes in space exploration, civilian and Military technology, and government intervention. OCP enters into an agreement to run and finance the Detroit police force in order to serve its needs, one being that OCP plans to turn Detroit into the city of tomorrow known as Delta City due to rampant crime and that the city is on the verge of financial collapse.

Back in ’07, Robert Rodriguez and Quinten Tarantino joined forces for an ambitious theatrical experiment. Grindhouse was a double feature of exploitation films that ran together on a single ticket. Holding these two films together was a series of fake trailers that completed the retro marathon’s vintage experience.

The hype for this dirty celluloid love fest rose to some pretty serious highest, prompting a contest that capitalized on the fake trailer angle. Contestants were asked to create a fake grindhouse-esque trailer in a similar style to those that were going to appear in the movie. The eventual winner of this contest was director Jason Eisener and his entry Hobo With A Shotgun.

Winning in equal parts because of the absurd simplicity of it’s premise and the skill with which the Canadian director was able to recreate the esthetic of low budget ’70s era exploitation films, Hobo With a Shotgun became an instant fan favorite and talks began to surface about expanding the trailer into a full feature. Now 4 years (and one Rutger Hauer) later Hobo With a Shotgun is a full length feature that lives up to all of the promise the original trailer hinted at.

The international uncensored grindhouse-style teaser trailer for Hobo with a Shotgun broke online over the weekend.

The film is based on a fan-made trailer by director Jason Eisener that went on to win the Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse Trailer contest at this year’s South by Southwest. In the film, a homeless hobo vigilante cleans up the streets by blowing away crooked cops, pedophile Santas, and other scumbags with his trusty pump-action shotgun.

In the teaser trailer we see Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) flawlessly portray a hobo chillingly explaining his ruthless actions to a nursery full of babies. We get a portrait of a dystopian society where rape, murder, corruption and drugs have taken over, which can only be cleaned up by a man with nothing to loose. In true “grindhouse” fashion, we are also treated to tons of explosive blood and gore.

Relative unknown Jason Eisener (Treevenge) is set to direct the film. This movie is set t0 hit screens in 2012. Filming for the film begins this Monday.

With the release of Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun now coming to theaters, can we expect to see more Grindhouse exploitation films on the way soon? What do you think about the new trend where films are trying to be bad on purpose? Can terrible films start throwing the grindhouse moniker in their tag lines to try and play off bad writing?

Keep it here for all your Hobo with a Shotgun news and check out the trailer after the jump.

It’s been a long time since Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep hit the shelves in 1968 and inspired a generation of Sci-Fi fans. In the novel, Dick imagined a post-apocalyptic world wherein earth and much of its population have been decimated by nuclear fallout after a massive world war.

Most animals were either forced into extinction or are now extremely rare due to the radiation poisoning resulting from this so-called World War Terminus. The book’s plotline follows the protagonist, Rick Deckard as a police bounty hunter, racing through a near-future San Francisco on the trail of six dangerous androids.

Many of us Sci-Fi fanatics know this story intimately from Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece, Blade Runner. Now, almost thirty years later, writer Chris Roberson and artist Robert Adler have imagined a prequel that will be available for the iPad in comic form. Taking place immediately after World War Terminus ends, the problems with artificial life – androids – become apparent.

The government decides they must become targets, hunted down, but who will do the dirty work? Two men are assigned: Malcolm Reed, a ‘special’ human with the power to feel others’ emotions, and Charlie Victor, who’s the perfect man for the job – or is he? Meanwhile Samantha Wu, a Stanford biologist, fights to save the last of the world’s animals.